Prepare to be infected with art across the city
UCT’S Institute for Creative Arts and curator Jay Pather have again teamed up to transform Cape Town’s communal spaces with popular public arts festival Infecting the City (ITC).
The six-day festival, a series of daytime and night-time events, takes place from November 18-23.
Included in this year’s diverse programme are top artists from Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, the Eastern Cape, Zimbabwe and Namibia, who will be joined by international acts from the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland.
From vertical dancers on city walls to performance activity in parked cars, ITC 2019 will activate city spaces from the Castle to the station, the fountain to the Cathedral and beyond.
“An emerging theme from this year’s proposals is work based in classical African tradition. Works that explore how classical African performance and rituals work inside the urban space. This is also to create atmospheres of cleansing and interiority within these commercially-driven, materialistic spaces,” said Pather.
Joining Pather as a curatorial fellow for the festival is internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer of African indigenous and crosscultural dance, Elvis Sibeko, who brings extensive experience with traditional African productions. Sibeko will be curating two programmes – one traversing the city centre, the other with the Castle of Good Hope as a backdrop – that bring together contemporary and classical African performance of various kinds.
ITC will be tackling issues such as women’s empowerment with productions not only performed by women, but curated and directed by women.
“Women traverse a thin line of security in our public spaces. South Africa ranks as one of the highest perpetrators of violence against women in the world. Foregrounding these issues in a public space is essential. And no amount of bringing this to the centre and in public will be enough,” Pather said.
The ITC public arts festival is the longest-running public arts festival in South Africa. Over the last 12 years, ITC has transformed Cape Town’s communal spaces into spectacular outdoor entertainment venues showcasing an array of energising and inspiring art forms.
Pather explains that as our environment becomes more trying, riddled with complexities and debates around land, poverty, race, safety and security and the environment, there is growing insularity. Public art creates the circumstances for emotions to be stirred, and for discussions to take place publicly.
He adds that public art combines the intimacy of art with the public encounter.
The festival will comprise four routes winding their way through the cityscape – two daytime routes, from 12.30pm to 4.30pm, and two evening routes, from 6pm to 9pm.
For information about artists and works represented at this year’s event, visit www.infectingthecity.com. Follow Infecting the City on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for programme updates and festival information.
The full festival programme will be released in early October.
Infecting the City is presented by the Institute for Creative Arts in association with UCT, the Africa Centre, l’Institut Français d’Afrique du Sud and Pro Helvetia, with collaborative support from the City of Cape Town, Company’s Garden, Iziko, Castle of Good Hope, District Six Museum, Prasa, Metrorail and others.